It has been about 2 months since I crossed the finish line of my first half-marathon - the Phoenix PF Changs Rock and Roll Marathon….and I cant wait to do it all over again…infact I cant wait to compete in my first full marathon before I turn 25…Why am I so eager and anxious if it was so painful and exhausting? Why do thousands of people every year, many repeatedly take part in such long endurance races?

Never before did I think about the joys experienced while pushing yourself to your physical limits. Even though I feel a sense of accomplishment after completing my first race in 2:20, I feel like I could have done much better. If not for the cramps I experienced during the last two miles, I could have shaved 10 mins off my time. For long I have dreamt about pacing my race so that I have the energy for the final dash during the home stretch. But this was not to be as I barely limped home…
If not for the overly crowded race, I feel like I could have shaved another 5 mins off my finish time. Maneuvering through the crowd to run the pace I was comfortable with turned out to be more annoying than I thought. I guess, I underestimated my finish time while others overestimated their times. This obviously resulted in many corral mismatches. Realistically speaking, I am happy with my time but thanks to good ol Jess and some past training runs, I was pretty confident I could have done it under 2:00
This brings me to my next question…how do I avoid these cramps in the future? I thought I managed my fluid intake very well over the few days before the race but looks like I was wrong. Also, to improve my time, I need to run more and run faster! This means that I need to work on strengthening my lower body. How much time do I devote to running and how much to strength training? How many half marathons do I need to prepare myself to compete in a full and finish under 4:00 or even 4:30?
After this experience, I am not sure if I ever want to run another mega-event-marathons but I cant wait to put my running shoes back on…so where do I want to run my next race? and when and where will the special full marathon be?

NEXT HALF - Prescott - May 2nd 2009

FIRST FULL - SAN DIEGO BABY!!! MAY 31^st 2009!! Bring it on TK!! lol